WTC triumph provides possible plot twist in Ashes re-run

There's been no shortage of similarities to the way Australia's 2023 Ashes campaign has played out and events that unfolded here on their previous visit four years ago.

A first-up win at Edgbaston to set them on their way, a late-in-the-game scare at Lord's followed by England's storming comeback victory at Headingley then realisation of one of the tour's primary ambitions with the urn retained at Old Trafford.

It should therefore follow, if the template laid down in 2019 is applied to the current contest, that Australia will again arrive for the finale at The Oval fatigued and a little fragile after celebrating the series' resolution.

But those who feel they've watched this movie before, and the 135-run win England banked to ensure that 2019 battle ended 2-2 will be replicated from Thursday, should be aware of a couple of potential plot twists.

For starters, the party that followed Australia's first successful attempt to defend the Ashes on enemy turf in almost two decades back in 2019 wasn't revisited when the same result was achieved via a rain-soaked draw in last week's fourth Test.

"There was no real massive elation because we'd seen the situation coming," said batter Travis Head, a veteran of both campaigns in explaining the stark difference in reaction to 2019's thumping win at Old Trafford and last Sunday's escape after England held the upper hand for three days.

"(We're) a really relaxed group, we had a quiet beer and a chat about where we need to go and what we can achieve this week, so our heads moved really quickly on to this week."

But perhaps the more important point of difference between matters of 2019 and their 2023 doppelgangers is that, in the four Tests played so far in this series, Australia's most immediate prior experience was hewn from the prior Ashes tour.

When it comes to The Oval however, they can call upon a far more recent and possibly more relevant visit of seven weeks ago where they also entered a must-win standalone Test against an opponent who had their measure in games leading in, and duly emerged authoritative winners.

That game was the World Test Championship Final played against India – currently the world's top-ranked Test team – where Australia reversed results from their tour to India just months earlier and clinched victory (and their first Test champions title) by 209 runs inside four and a half days.

It's therefore no surprise Pat Cummins' team exuded an air of welcome relief when they returned to such happily familiar turf for their major pre-Test training session on Tuesday ahead of the fifth Ashes match starting Thursday.

While the hoopla that has accompanied the start of the Ashes and its accompanying 'Bazball' sub-plot has seemingly erased all memory throughout England of the success Australia achieved at this very venue in June, it is obviously front of mind for Cummins' men.

Their game of hybrid soccer-volleyball that precedes most practice sessions was demonstrably the most animated of the tour to date, and reminiscent of a similar team-building exercise conducted at Derby in 2019 in the days before their urn-deciding win at Manchester.

Furthermore, the sight of Scott Boland steaming in and repeatedly beating the forward defences of teammates in the nets meant minds were cast back to his decisive spell on the final morning of the WTC Final where he removed India's star pair Virat Kohli and Ravindra Jadeja in a single over.

Todd Murphy wheeled away throughout the two-hour session with a view to replicating the role played by fellow off-spinner Nathan Lyon who captured 4-43 on a WTC Final pitch that – as is true to The Oval's reputation – offered assistance for spin on the final days.

And Steve Smith skipped the high-spirited warm-up ritual and instead headed directly to the practice nets nearby on the main arena, so keen was he to re-acquaint himself with the centre wickets where he scored 121 and 34 when he last batted at The Oval.

But the player with the fondest memories of that game where Australia's gruelling schedule of six Tests inside eight weeks began in early June is Head, whose blazing 163 off 174 balls against India pre-dated the ongoing 'Bazball' hysteria and earned him player of the match honours.

It represented a double triumph for the left-hander whose 2019 memories were essentially bitter, losing his place in Australia's starting XI for that fixture which ended the team's hopes of a first Ashes series win in the UK since 2001.

"I remember coming here in 2019, it's a lot different this time the way the week’s panned out," Head said prior to Australia's penultimate training run of the tour.

"In 2019 we retained them (Ashes in Manchester) and hadn't done that for a long time so it was huge, then came here (The Oval) and didn’t have our best week.

"So we reflect from that moving forward, and the group's pretty similar but the ambition was to come here and win them, and we've got that chance."

If there is another positive Australia can take from past experiences, it's the value of sport's most oft-invoked and overrated commodity – momentum.

As Marnus Labuschagne noted after his match-saving century at Old Trafford, the enduring belief that one all-conquering performance invariably begets another was undermined by events of 2019 where England's last-gasp win at Headingley bled into a 185-run defeat at Old Trafford.

If anyone could have claimed momentum after the fourth Test of 2019 it was Australia, but their comfortable win gave way to an equally lopsided loss barely a week later.

Head was another to cast doubts over who momentum might favour in this finely balanced series, suggesting the best way to wrest it is to excel from a game's outset as Australia did in the WTC final by scoring 3-327 on an emphatic first day.

"There have been definitely moments we've missed and moments that England have missed," he said of oscillating fortunes throughout the Ashes.

"Momentum has shifted so much through each Test match, not only through the series … it's ebbed and flowed throughout.

"So it's going to be really important in a couple of days' time, whatever we do first, doing it well and trying to gain momentum back if England feel like they've got the momentum from (Old Trafford).

"Like we've seen throughout the whole series, it can be quite easy to take back and momentum can shift the other way pretty quickly.

"There's confidence in this group from what we've done over a couple of years, what we've done in this series so far will hold us in good stead and we played really well here a month or two ago."

2023 Qantas Ashes Tour of the UK

First Test: Australia won by two wickets

Second Test: Australia won by 43 runs

Third Test: Thursday July 6-Monday July 10, Headingley

Fourth Test: Match drawn

Fifth Test: Thursday July 27-Monday 31, The Oval

Australia squad: Pat Cummins (c), Scott Boland, Alex Carey (wk), Cameron Green, Marcus Harris, Josh Hazlewood, Travis Head, Josh Inglis (wk), Usman Khawaja, Marnus Labuschagne, Nathan Lyon, Mitch Marsh, Todd Murphy, Michael Neser, Matthew Renshaw, Steve Smith (vc), Mitchell Starc, David Warner

England squad: Ben Stokes (c), Rehan Ahmed, James Anderson, Jonathan Bairstow, Stuart Broad, Harry Brook, Zak Crawley, Ben Duckett, Dan Lawrence, Jack Leach, Ollie Pope, Matthew Potts, Ollie Robinson, Joe Root, Josh Tongue, Chris Woakes, Mark Wood